Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread

[bomberbaz]

Ok so tried your settings Lee and my guiding went completely to the dogs, obviously something wasn't right somewhere with what I was doing.

Anyway I have reset everything and will run with average guiding for now and concentrate on getting my exposure/gain settings right as well as flats/darks/bias capture before I tinker further.

Think I am trying to move to fast so for now I am gonna stick with basics.

[AstroNebulee]

26 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Ok so tried your settings Lee and my guiding went completely to the dogs, obviously something wasn't right somewhere with what I was doing.

Anyway I have reset everything and will run with average guiding for now and concentrate on getting my exposure/gain settings right as well as flats/darks/bias capture before I tinker further.

Think I am trying to move to fast so for now I am gonna stick with basics.

That's a pity with your guiding being rubbish tonight, every set up is different I guess. Probably better to concentrate on one thing first with your gsdin and exposures if the guidfing isn't to bad for you. I know with my set up anything after the southern meridian is awful on guiding for some reason (maybe need to shifts the weights up a bit?)but before the southern meridian my guiding is great. Good luck with your session tonight Steve 👍

[bomberbaz]

Second update, tracking actually appears to have tightened up since I introduced dithering into the imaging process. No idea why it appears better but it definitely is improved.

As per previous post for now I am not going to try figuring anything out but it is a nice thing to get.

@AstroNebulee I am dithering every even number sub (2,4,6 etc) just to see if this helps improve results. I am using medium setting on gain which is 111 (unity) and currently halfway through 40 x 2 minute exposures. Lets see what this gives me on M82

[AstroNebulee]

14 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Second update, tracking actually appears to have tightened up since I introduced dithering into the imaging process. No idea why it appears better but it definitely is improved.

As per previous post for now I am not going to try figuring anything out but it is a nice thing to get.

@AstroNebulee I am dithering every even number sub (2,4,6 etc) just to see if this helps improve results. I am using medium setting on gain which is 111 (unity) and currently halfway through 40 x 2 minute exposures. Lets see what this gives me on M82

It does sound like an improvement indeed for some reason. Maybe the mount needed a bit to hone itself in, the seeing or transparency got better or wind dropped calibration could be any number of things, I'm pleased it's settling and you'll see a big difference with dithering, can't wait to see your results. You're doing great Steve 👍😊

Edited March 25, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[bomberbaz]

2 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

It does sound like an improvement indeed for some reason. Maybe the mount needed a bit to hone itself in, the seeing or transparency got better or wind dropped calibration could be any number of things, I'm pleased it's settling and you'll see a big difference with dithering, can't wait to see your results. You're doing great Steve 👍😊

Cheers Lee. On a side note my cooling mod is doing as expected at about 15F below ambient, however the problem I am encountering is related to the powering of the mod. So I am getting a 2.1/5/.5 jack to fit into the AIR to draw power directly from a powertank and not give out after an hour which is what is happening with the current bank of lithium AAA's.

I am going to stop with an hours data of M81, see how that works out with the latest tranche of alterations. All good fun.

Steve

[badhex]

On 24/03/2022 at 21:56, AstroNebulee said:

Just seen this whilst perusing the mounts section on sgl..... WOW! Hot topic, you guys are making this thread an invaluable source on the brilliant az gti mount, thank you! 🙏😊

Crikey! Doesn't seem that long ago since we had a conversation about needing this thread Lee, and look at it now. 31 pages in 4 months! 

[OK Apricot]

Quick one guys - tonight carrying out alignment, it failed 4 times? It's a PITA as I have to reset the mount and level the tube, reconnect phone etc. It did align very well eventually with accurate goto however tracking was not as good as it has been - objects drifting after around 10 minutes. Any ideas? 

[badhex]

4 hours ago, OK Apricot said:

Quick one guys - tonight carrying out alignment, it failed 4 times? It's a PITA as I have to reset the mount and level the tube, reconnect phone etc. It did align very well eventually with accurate goto however tracking was not as good as it has been - objects drifting after around 10 minutes. Any ideas? 

When you say it failed, what exactly happened? As in it just didn't work, or did you get error messages or similar? 

[LaurenceT]

On the  subject of alignment I wonder how many people are compensating for the difference between magnetic North and geographical North.

Last night when experimenting with SkySafari using the AZ GTI I found that my compass app allowed me to compensate for magnetic declination and my gotos were significantly improved.

[AstroNebulee]

9 hours ago, badhex said:

Crikey! Doesn't seem that long ago since we had a conversation about needing this thread Lee, and look at it now. 31 pages in 4 months! 

Thank you @badhex for giving me the push to start the thread, it sure has proved invaluable place for the az gti community. I feel we are all becoming good friends on here, sharing help, stories and advice, keep it up guys👍, @powerlordcame up with a good suggestion of creating a sticky of page numbers with certain info in it that will prove helpful, one day I'll get around to it when there's a real cloudy period and now clocks going forward have more time, so sometime I'll try 😊

Edited March 26, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[AstroNebulee]

11 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

Cheers Lee. On a side note my cooling mod is doing as expected at about 15F below ambient, however the problem I am encountering is related to the powering of the mod. So I am getting a 2.1/5/.5 jack to fit into the AIR to draw power directly from a powertank and not give out after an hour which is what is happening with the current bank of lithium AAA's.

I am going to stop with an hours data of M81, see how that works out with the latest tranche of alterations. All good fun.

Steve

Just think once it's all sorted and you've a trusted workflow and settings range, you'll be able to just set up and image then relax with a wee one and peruse the night sky with a set of bins as you image.... Side note I don't always settle down with a wee one when imaging 🥃

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited March 26, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[AstroNebulee]

10 minutes ago, LaurenceT said:

On the  subject of alignment I wonder how many people are compensating for the difference between magnetic North and geographical North.

Last night when experimenting with SkySafari using the AZ GTI I found that my compass app allowed me to compensate for magnetic declination and my gotos were significantly improved.

Good point Laurence. One I thought of a few posts ago with the alignment issues on here. Most phone apps point to magnetic North and not geographical north, unless some have a setting to change it. Cheers 

Lee 

[OK Apricot]

1 hour ago, badhex said:

When you say it failed, what exactly happened? As in it just didn't work, or did you get error messages or similar? 

After centering the last star of the 3 alignment, it said "alignment failed", in the same way it would otherwise say "alignment successful". 

For North I just use Polaris, its been giving good results so far. 

[LaurenceT]

13 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Good point Laurence. One I thought of a few posts ago with the alignment issues on here. Most phone apps point to magnetic North and not geographical north, unless some have a setting to change it. Cheers 

Lee 

The app I use that compensates for magnetic declination is provided by PixelProse if anyone is interested..

[Elp]

9 hours ago, LaurenceT said:

On the  subject of alignment I wonder how many people are compensating for the difference between magnetic North and geographical North.

Last night when experimenting with SkySafari using the AZ GTI I found that my compass app allowed me to compensate for magnetic declination and my gotos were significantly improved.

You should always align to true north as best as possible as it is a fixed point on Earth, magnetic shifts over time depending on the Earth's magnetic field activity and it doesn't point exactly to true north.

Edited March 26, 2022 by Elp

[badhex]

49 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Thank you @badhex for giving me the push to start the thread, it sure has proved invaluable place for the az gti community. I feel we are all becoming good friends on here, sharing help, stories and advice, keep it up guys👍, @powerlordcame up with a good suggestion of creating a sticky of page numbers with certain info in it that will prove helpful, one day I'll get around to it when there's a real cloudy period and now clocks going forward have more time, so sometime I'll try 😊

It was your great idea, and everyone's great input that has made it a success 🙂 Glad we can all share and help each other like you said! Happy to help contribute to trawling through for the stickies when you get round to it 🙂

[badhex]

59 minutes ago, LaurenceT said:

On the  subject of alignment I wonder how many people are compensating for the difference between magnetic North and geographical North.

Last night when experimenting with SkySafari using the AZ GTI I found that my compass app allowed me to compensate for magnetic declination and my gotos were significantly improved.

 

18 minutes ago, Elp said:

You should always align to true north as best as possible as it is a fixed point on Earth, magnetic shifts over time depending on the Earth's magnetic field activity.

Also depends on if you're using AZ or EQ mode I guess. You can be pretty fast and loose with AZ mode in my experience. 

[AstroNebulee]

I will put this in the deep sky imaging section but wanted to post here to show you guys first. My efforts on M101 this week, 4 hours worth, processed in Startools with a small tweak in photoshop for high pass. 

80x180 sec subs 

30 x dark, flats and flat darks 

Even the transparency didn't ruin it too much 👍

Edited March 26, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[LaurenceT]

3 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

I will put this in the deep sky imaging section but wanted to post here to show you guys first. My efforts on M101 this week, 4 hours worth, processed in Startools with a small tweak in photoshop for high pass. 

80x180 sec subs 

Even the transparency didn't ruin it too much 👍

That's superb Lee.

[AstroNebulee]

5 minutes ago, LaurenceT said:

That's superb Lee.

Thank you Laurence 👍, I'm quite happy with it, may reprocess it though. Don't think anymore integration time on it will improve it now. I particularly like the little companion galaxy NGC 5474 to the bottom right is very cool. 

Edited March 26, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[badhex]

18 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

I will put this in the deep sky imaging section but wanted to post here to show you guys first. My efforts on M101 this week, 4 hours worth, processed in Startools with a small tweak in photoshop for high pass. 

80x180 sec subs 

Even the transparency didn't ruin it too much 👍

Wow, love the colours in this! Great stuff Lee 👏

[AstroNebulee]

5 hours ago, badhex said:

It was your great idea, and everyone's great input that has made it a success 🙂 Glad we can all share and help each other like you said! Happy to help contribute to trawling through for the stickies when you get round to it 🙂

Thank you, I will gladly seek your help when creating the sticky 

Edited March 26, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[AstroNebulee]

Just now, badhex said:

Wow, love the colours in this! Great stuff Lee 👏

Thank you, really pleased you like it, I'm learning slowly with processing 👍

[LaurenceT]

26 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Thank you Laurence 👍, I'm quite happy with it, may reprocess it though. Don't think anymore integration time on it will improve it now. I particularly like the little companion galaxy NGC 5474 to the bottom right is very cool. 

Did you only take lights or some calibration frames?

[badhex]

5 hours ago, OK Apricot said:

After centering the last star of the 3 alignment, it said "alignment failed", in the same way it would otherwise say "alignment successful". 

For North I just use Polaris, its been giving good results so far. 

Sorry for the late response - I've been doing some digging as have never seen this error before. I don't even understand how it can fail! 

It seems like this is not completely unknown and in fact some older SGL threads mentioned that it is quite common when doing three star alignment, but I can't find much with that exact error message. Most of the threads were for Synscan SW mounts with handsets but not necessarily the AZ-GTi. At least once, there was mention of failing due to power issues; we've also seen various other issues crop up on this thread related to power. Forgive me if you have already said but what power source are you using? Any possibility that it's dipping below 12v, or any loose connections? 

I looked on some of the official documentation but oddly again this error is not mentioned! It does have some interesting information on alignment and recommendations about targets. The manual is a dated a couple of years ago but seems to be the most recent one:

https://skywatcher.com/download/manual/synscan-hand-control-and-synscan-app/

I've also attached it. 

I did find a very useful thread on CN about AZ-GTi alignment which someone hypothesises various details on how the mount software works, and it generally seems sensible and plausible. Search "Skywatcher Synscan/AZ-GTi Alignment Instructions" and I'm sure you'll find it. Relevant to your issue, it seems that when the alignment is completed, it stores the sky model/map in memory based on the alignment you performed, and then uses that when performing goto. Could it be that when trying to save the model, it is failing to save for some reason, possibly power as above? 

Finally, 3 star alignment seems to have the added step of triangulating the mounts position/direction and any errors during alignment and so theoretically should be the most accurate. Could there be something else in the last step that is causing the issue? When experiencing the error, did you try any other alignment types to see if the same thing happened? 

Sorry, quite a lengthy reply but hopefully of some help! 

synscan_app_manual_en_20201008.pdf